To outside observers, Barker always appeared to have been promoted far beyond his ability. But in politics’ smoke-filled backrooms, success is sometimes less about brilliance than about blind loyalty. And that, unfortunately, is where Labour’s senior whip Darren Hughes – another former minister – has also disgraced himself.

Hughes is smart. But, like Barker, he has been found willing to insist that black is white if that is what the leadership expects of him. Hughes has fronted the media, insisting that Barker’s fraudulent poll was justifiable, allowing leader Phil Goff to duck for cover.

Barker has acted dishonestly. Hughes has sacrificed principle for patsy-ism. Goff has just cowered and, when confronted by political reporters outside the Labour Caucus room with nowhere to hide, obfuscated.

Labour’s leader must now stand up and take responsibility for the deception that was conducted with funds entrusted to him by Parliament. Barker should be sacked from all his Caucus responsibilities. Hughes, too, must be left in no doubt about how repugnant his rationalisations are.

These, then, are the simple truths that are demanded of Labour’s tarnished leadership. And these are the truths Labour has forgotten.

Sacking Rick Barker over this would be a public relations disaster, as would chastising and publicly humiliating Labour’s great-ginger-hope and Mr Fix-it, Hughes. Bowing to petty pressure from scalp hungry journalists would surely push moral and the polls to new lows.

The media loves scalps; that is why they write these editorials. No one outside of Wellington gives a stuff about this crap.

The issue of course is more about the handling than the supposed ‘crime’ itself. Barker’s words “i don’t know what you are talking about” were not well chosen. However, within hours, after gathering the facts, Hughes was fronting.

This is not a hanging offence, and as Farrar points out, the quantity of bad press is probably the result of a rather quiet news week.

So Goff does need to come out swinging but not at his caucus.

Overseas travels have seen him slip from the public’s gaze of late, and now he’s back and having to fight fires he didnt light, and all at time when the Government is providing ample opportunity for him to land some swift jabs.

ACC cuts and levy increases, constant talk of new taxes and GST increases, an ETS that will see average hard-working kiwis hand big money over to big polluters and big business, all while unemployment sits at decade highs. Oh and where is the cycleway and the ultra fast broadband?

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As an after thought, I’m rather puzzled about Labour Party President Andrew Little’s role in fuelling this issue from the start. The day it kicked off Little said he knew nothing about the operation and that it would concern him very deeply.

Andrew Little has a reputation from speaking his mind. At Labour’s conference this year he announced, one can only assume unilaterally, that the Foreshore and Seabed Act was a failure, that Maori deserved their day in court, and that the Reserve Bank Act and monetary policy was on the next Labour government’s chopping block.

Why would he say “it would concern him very deeply”, thus fertilising the ground for a scandal, and why didn’t he call the Leader’s Office first to check it out?

by Jake Quinn

This does sound like rather sensible advice. It reminds me of a certain Alanis Morissette song, something to do with irony…

Yee adds that the Labour Party could have easily conducted their research themselves without any of the lies that they chose to make: “We understand that the Labour Party would not have wished to identify themselves before interviewing people because respondents’ answers could then be skewed, but all they had to do was explain to potential respondents that they were a political party surveying the public, and that their identity would be revealed at the end of the interview to avoid skewing the results. This workaround would have provided the Labour Party with unbiased results without misleading the public.”

It is from a somewhat breathless and superlative packed press release issued by the Market Research Society of New Zealand and the Association of Market Research Organisations where they “expressed their extreme concern” (really?) demanding Labour apologise to the nation for their “unethical and misleading activities” around Rick Barker’s phone polling which came to light over the long weekend.

The groups have been kind enough to extend an invite to Mr Barker to attend some of their training, if he so wishes:

“Mr Barker is welcome to join the Market Research Society of New Zealand in order to improve his knowledge of market research and ethical polling. We run regular educational events for our members and it would be good to see Mr Barker attending so that he can conduct his future surveys with a greater degree of professionalism”

How utterly decent of them😉

But seriously, this whole thing shouldn’t really have been an issue as all political parties conduct in-house polling from time to time, but unfortunately the handling of it didn’t seem to go so swimmingly. I blame Labour weekend hangovers. After all its only reasonable that Labour types would celebrate rather hard on their long weekend!

“Barker, when questioned, initially said: ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about’. When provided with details, including dates, Barker said he would call back,” the Herald on Sunday reported. Party President Andrew Little noted on the same day that he knew nothing about the operation and that it would concern him very deeply. Whoops.